Serial Killing Suspect Cunanan Is Found Dead in Miami Beach

Andrew Phillip Cunanan, suspected of killing fashion designer Gianni Versace and four other men in a murder spree that launched one of the most massive manhunts in U.S. history, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Wednesday after police SWAT teams stormed a houseboat in which he was hiding.

Police said Cunanan, a 27-year-old male prostitute, was found in a second-floor bedroom of the luxurious houseboat docked on the Intracoastal Waterway just a few miles from the popular South Beach strip where Versace was gunned down July 15 on the steps of his mansion.

Miami Beach Police Chief Richard Barreto said FBI technicians identified Cunanan as the man found dead of a gunshot wound to the head. A handgun, believed to be a .40-caliber weapon of the type linked to the shooting of Versace and two other victims, was found beside the body.

In addition to Versace, the famed designer who was memorialized in his native Italy on Tuesday by celebrities and fans alike, Cunanan is suspected in the killings of four other men in a violent rampage which began in April with the slayings in Minnesota of his former lover and his best friend.

Identification of Cunanan’s body was delayed until early today because tear gas fired into the house was so thick that technicians had to leave at least twice. Fans were brought in to clear the air, Barreto said.

The houseboat is located on Collins Avenue, about 40 blocks north of Versace’s house in the Art Deco section known as South Beach, and 19 blocks south of a fading 1930s hotel where Cunanan is known to have lived in anonymity for almost two months before Versace’s murder.

Police were called to the houseboat after a caretaker entered the residence and heard a gunshot.

After a four-hour siege in which police repeatedly called for the occupant to come out, SWAT teams tossed several concussion grenades and fired tear gas into the houseboat. A group of flak-jacketed officers then rushed aboard the vessel.

First reports indicated that no one was inside. But speculation ran high from the start of the siege that Cunanan had been located, ending an intense search for a man many experts predicted would kill again.

With a single gunshot, Cunanan ended a three-month run that had grown into a consuming national drama. Despite the many reported sightings of look-alikes from all parts of the U.S., police continued to insist that they believed Cunanan was still in South Florida. He was thought to be low on money, and thanks to television broadcasts, the Internet, and tens of thousands of FBI wanted posters, his face was everywhere.

The death of Cunanan also preserved the mystery of precisely what turned a handsome man who had a reputation in San Diego gay society as a happy-go-lucky party-goer into a vicious serial killer. At least some acquaintances in San Diego reported that Cunanan’s alleged rampage may have been touched off when he learned he had been infected with the AIDS virus.

An autopsy may now determine if that was true.

Scores of police and FBI agents streamed to the houseboat just before rush hour, turning traffic on the island of Miami Beach into a giant snarl and drawing large crowds of onlookers to the cordoned-off scene.

Hundreds of people also gathered outside Versace’s Mediterranean-style house, where they waited for developments by watching the television monitors of broadcast crews.

Although there was little action during the siege, the drama was televised live for most of its duration by almost all of Miami’s English- and Spanish-language stations to an audience both shocked by Versace’s murder and fascinated by the police dragnet for his killer.

After firing tear gas into the houseboat, flak-jacketed police yelled “Come out! Come out!” But there was no response.

The Associated Press reported the body was found on the second floor of the boat, in a bedroom.

The houseboat is reportedly owned by a Torsten Reineck, who also owns the Apollo Spa and Health Club, a Las Vegas social club that caters to gays. A man who says he sold the houseboat to Reineck identified the present owner as a German national who drives a Rolls Royce when he is in Miami Beach.

David Todini, who lives nearby, told the Associated Press that he saw a man in the vicinity of the houseboat who fit Cunanan’s description, wearing a bandanna and carrying a backpack the night before Versace was killed.

Cunanan was known to have stayed at the Normandy Plaza Hotel from mid-May until slipping out early on the morning of July 12 without paying his last night’s bill. No record of where he has been since then has been found.

Cunanan’s death will ease fears and apprehension all across the U.S., especially among residents of the gay community who had been warned by federal officials that Cunanan may have been on a mission of deadly revenge.